SYNESIUS (2w«rios), one of the most ele­gant of the ancient Christian writers, was a native of Gyrene, and traced his descent from the Spartan king Eurysthenes. He devoted himself to the study of all branches of Greek literature, first in his own city, and afterwards at Alexandria, where he heard Hypatia ; and became celebrated for his skill in eloquence and poetry, as well as in phi­losophy, in which he was a follower of Plato. About A. d. 397, he was sent by his fellow-citizens of Cyrene on an embassy to Constantinople, to present the emperor Arcadius with a crown of gold ; on which occasion he delivered an oration on the government of a kingdom (irepl /3a<nA.e£as), which is still extant. Soon after this he embraced Christianity, and was baptized by Theophilus, the patriarch of Alexandria, who had such a sense of his merits that, in the year 410, he ordained him as bishop of Ptolemai's, the chief city of the Lib}ran Pentapolis, although Synesius was very unwilling to accept the office, and enforced his nolo episcopari by declaring that he would not put away his wife, that he disbelieved the resurrection of the body, and that in other respects his studies and opinions and pursuits were of a nature not quite consistent with the notions of the strictly orthodox. Theo­philus, however, overruled these objections: Syne­sius was permitted to retain his wife ; and he very soon made a public profession of his belief in the resurrection of the body. He presided over his diocese with energy and success for about twenty years. Among his most remarkable acts were the conversion to Christianity of the philosopher Eva-grius, and the humiliation of Andronicus, the ty­rannical president of Libya, whom he brought, by the combined effect of the terrors of excommuni­cation, and a complaint to the emperor, to suppli­cate the pardon of the church. The time of his death is not stated ; but he cannot have lived beyond a. d. 430 or 431, since in the latter year his younger brother and successor Euoptius ap­peared at the council of Ephesus as bishop of

SYNESIUS.

Ptolemai's. His writings have been objects of ad­miration both to ancient and modern scholars, and have obtained for him the surname of Philosopher. Those of them still extant are the following:—1. Ely t^v avTOKpaTopa 'ApKaSiov Trepl fiaaiXeias, the oration already referred to. 2. AtW, $) ircpl tt)s KaQ* eavTbv 81070077)5, Dio, sive de suo ipsius In-stitulo, a work in which he professes his intention, after the example of Dio Chrysostom, to devote his life to true philosophy. It appears to have been written about A. d. 404, soon after his marriage. 3. QaAaKpas ^y/ccfyuoi', Encomium calvitii, a sort of exercise of wit, in which he defends the condition of baldness in opposition to the /co^s eyic&fjuoy of Dio Chrysostom. (See Tzetz. Chil. xi. 725.) The work of Chrysostom is now lost. 4. AlyvirTios fy ircpl Trpovoias, Aegyptius sive de Providentia, in two books, in which he gives an allegorical de­scription of the evils of the time, under the guise of the fable of Osiris and Typhon. 5. Uepl ei/i>7w«v, De Insomniis, on Dreams, a work which Cave and others have supposed, from internal evidence, to have been written before he became a Christian. 6. 'EirLffToXat, a collection of 156 (not 155) Let­ters, which form by far the most interesting portion of his extant works. 7. 'OjUiAia, a short discourse on Psalm Ixxv. 8. 8. 'O/*iAia, another short dis­course on the Eve of the Nativity of Christ. 9. pyOe'ia'a ctt! Ty fji^yiffTy t&v PapGdpav FewaSi'ov Kal Aovicbs ovtos ^ an oration describing the calamities suffered by the Pentapolis from the great incursion of the barbarians in a. D. 412. 10. KaraoTatns, an oration in praise of Aysius, the prefect of Libya. 11. Upbs Haioviov virep tov Swpou Actyos, de dono Astrolabii ad Paeonium dissertafio. 12. "T^ai/ot, ten Hymns ; which appear to have been only a small portion of his poetical compositions. The Greek Anthology contains three epigrams ascribed to him, two of which consist each of a single hex­ameter verse (Brunck, Anal. vol. ii. p. 449 ; Jacobs, Anih. Graec. vol. iii. p. 155, vol. xiii. p. 956), and he himself refers to tragedies and comedies of his own composition. (Dion, p. 62, c.; Welcker, die Griech. Tragod. p. 1323.)

The Editio Princeps of his whole works is that of Turnebus, Paris, 1553, fol.: the next is that of Cl. Morell, with the Latin version of Petavius, Lutet. (Paris), 1612, fol.; much improved and en­larged, Lutet. (Paris), 1633, fol. ; reprinted, 1640, fol. There are also numerous editions of the se­parate works, and of collections of several of them. (Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. vol. xii. pp. 499, foil.; Cave, Hist. Litt. s.a. 410, vol. i. pp. 389, 390, ed. Basil.; Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. ix. pp. 190, foil.; Hoffmann, Lex. Bibl. Script. Graec.}

A few other writers of this name, none of whom deserve special notice, are mentioned by Fabricius(1. c. p. 204). In the Greek Anthology, besides the epigrams of the celebrated Synesius, there is one, on a statue of Hippocrates, ascribed to a cer­ tain Synesius Scholasticus, who appears to have flourished shortly before the destruction of Berytus by an earthquake in a. d. 551. (Brunck, Anal. Graec. vol. iii. p. 11 ; Jacobs, Anth. Graec. vol. iii. p. 232, vol. xiii. p. 956.) [P. S.]

SYNESIUS (Su^tnos). Under this name a short Greek treatise on Fevers was published in 1749, 8vo. Amstel. et Lugd. Bat., with the title, "Synesius de Febribus, quern nunc prhnum ex Codice MS. Bibliothecae Lugduno-Batavae edidit,